UNITED NATIONS -- The United States on Tuesday circulated a revised resolution that would extend a U.N. arms embargo on Iran indefinitely, seeking to gain more support in the 15-member Security Council where veto-wielding Russia and China have voiced strong opposition.
U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft said the new draft "takes council views into account and simply does what everyone knows should be done -- extend the arms embargo to prevent Iran from freely buying and selling conventional weapons."
"It is only common sense that the world's #1 state sponsor of terror not be given the means of unleashing even greater harm on the world," she said in a statement.
Council diplomats said the revised draft could be put in a final form today and put to a vote Friday.
Iran's president lashed out on Wednesday at the revised proposal.
President Hassan Rouhani lambasted the revised draft, saying its "initiators will be responsible for the consequences" if the Security Council adopts the new resolution. He did not elaborate on what steps Iran could take.
The revised draft, obtained by The Associated Press, is just four paragraphs and replaces the original seven-page, 35-paragraph draft circulated in June.
The original draft included several provisions that some diplomats objected to as going beyond the extension of the arms embargo, and were eliminated.
One provision in the original resolution would have authorized all U.N. member states to inspect cargo entering or transiting through their territory at airports, seaports and free trade zones from Iran or heading there, if the member state had "reasonable grounds to believe the cargo" contained banned items.
Another provision would have condemned a September 2019 attack on Saudi Arabia and December 2019 attacks on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, saying Iran was responsible.
The new draft states that the arms embargo, notwithstanding its Oct. 18 expiration, "shall continue to apply until the Security Council decides otherwise." It says that full implementation of the arms embargo "is essential to the maintenance of international peace and security."
Iran's U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi tweeted: "Rebuffed by UNSC [Security Council] members, US was forced to retreat from its draft resolution ... and proposed another version."
"The new draft is similar -- in its NATURE and GOAL -- to the previous," he tweeted. "Confident that the Council will -- again -- reject this move."
The United Nations banned Iran from buying major foreign weapon systems in 2010 amid tensions over its nuclear program. That blocked Iran from replacing its aging military equipment, much of which had been purchased by the shah before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. An earlier embargo targeted Iranian arms exports.
The U.S. push to make the arms embargo permanent comes after President Donald Trump's 2018 withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between six major powers and Iran that was aimed at preventing Iranian development of nuclear weapons.
The 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing the nuclear deal includes a provision lifting the arms embargo on Iran on Oct. 18.
The foreign ministers of Russia and China, in separate letters to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council last month, were sharply critical of the U.S. effort to indefinitely extend the arms embargo. They gave every indication they would veto any such resolution if it got the minimum nine "yes" votes in the 15-member council, which appears unlikely.
If the resolution is defeated, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested the U.S. would invoke the "snap back" mechanism in the 2015 nuclear deal that would restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran. "Snap back" was envisioned in the event Iran was proven to be in violation of the accord, under which it received billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
In a separate development Wednesday, Iranian hard-liners in parliament voted against Rouhani's nominee for trade minister in the first showdown between the rival camps since the house resumed work in May despite the struggles to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Lawmakers rejected Hossein Modares Khiabani's nomination for minister of trade and industries.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the vote was 140-104 against the nominee. There were 254 lawmakers at the session and 10 abstained. The parliament has 290 seats.
The vote marked the first serious confrontation between the newly elected house, dominated by conservatives and the bloc of supporters of the relatively moderate Rouhani.
Under the law, Rouhani must introduce new nominees to his Cabinet in the next three months.
Information for this article was contributed by Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat of The Associated Press.